


Late Night

by sunsleeping



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Sokka has adhd, quarantine fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:00:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25139626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsleeping/pseuds/sunsleeping
Summary: Sokka's bogged down w summer course quarantine bs and it's a good thing his sweet boyf is there to break his legs and make it better.
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 35
Kudos: 301





	1. Chapter 1

Sokka kicked his feet against his desk, pushing himself back and away from his computer. He spun around in his chair, biting down hard on the chewy penguin necklace his boyfriend had given him. He thrummed his fingers against his chair, hauling his legs up to sit cross-legged.

His hair, released from its wolftail, dangled fluffily and messily around his face. He stuck out his tongue, staring at the program he’d been working on, it’s instructions, and the giant window filled with tab after tab of tutorials and semi helpful youtube videos that he unfortunately couldn’t focus on long enough to get through on his triple monitor setup.

Outside his curtained windows, night had long since fallen. On most nights, he went to sleep early, but on this particular night, he’d been hit with it™. To say that he wasn’t doing well in his course was an understatement: he’d come into this course from a difference university that taught the units of it and its predecessor in a different order, thus both tremendously behind and ahead, which immediately activated his rejection sensitivity, and burned out from his prior full course load suddenly all going online at once with the full-fledged pandemic.

He was out of his element in Republic City. At first, it had seemed a blessing to be in such a streamlined area; now, with the constant traffic and ongoings during the pandemic, and the constant distractions without the solidifying agent of in-person courses, lectures, labs, and assistance, he was floundering.

It also really did not help that this course was “flexible,” meaning he didn’t need to worry about getting the majority of it done by any particular time except for the fifty percent by the middle of the course and all of it by the end. He'd thought that it was over and fully gone through the grieving process, now that he'd failed to complete half of its content by midway, certain that he'd be kicked from it, but neither his professor nor his advisor seemed to know what consequences there were for his failure to meet the basic requirements of the course. Most likely, it was that he wouldn't be able to try any other flexible courses from the university, which wouldn't be a problem seeing as he was only there for his _other_ course that summer.

He’d failed due to the circumstances of organizational differences and the flexibility itself, due to the difficulty of his brain recognizing but not initiating prioritization, his inability to task switch quickly and efficiently without getting distracted, his inability to focus while he tried to force it, and again, the immediate-upon-entry rejection sensitivity of not knowing the least bit of units that he was expected to have mastered.

“Just study the subjects that you weren’t taught,” his sister would say, were they quarantined together.

Luckily, they weren't. Luckily, he was quarantined in his tiny apartment with his cute boyfriend instead. He could feel his heart begin to beat faster at the thought, but no, he was supposed to be focusing just then.

It was just too bad that he couldn’t work idyllically when his brain decided to shut off upon not immediately grasping whatever he was supposed to be studying and without the assistance that he needed.

He could do it. He knew he could. It was just… his brain wasn’t wired idyllically. His brain was an ADHD nightmare and he had to work with it how best he could.

They had all told him not to take the course. He was already taking another from the same not-his-university, because it was cheaper and he couldn’t handle their particular brand of that particular maths course with their particular Professor who they made teach or be included in every section of it. It was a root-out. He knew he wouldn’t be able to do it but he needed it to move on.

He also figured that if he could get on track with his major moreso at the same time, not being able to healthily take as many courses per semester as his major would otherwise demand, no harm no foul.

Except, he’d overestimated himself again. He’d decided that _Yeah, if I could handle this in an idyllic situation with an idyllic mental state and everything being perfect, I should be able to handle this now_.

He could not. He always overestimated himself, assumed that just because he could see himself managing it fine in a perfect scenario, it would work out fine and dandy IRL, which was never a perfect scenario.

He stretched his arms over his head, leaned back, and closed his eyes.

Someone pressed a soft kiss to the back of his head and he jumped in his seat, accidentally headbutting their nose, despite knowing full well the only person it should realistically be.

“Oof!” his boyfriend gasped, shaking his head swiftly to get rid of the sensation.

“Sorry,” Sokka immediately apologized, reaching up behind him to cup his sweetheart’s cheek. He felt him melt down into his touch, pushing back against his hand.

“You were doing the distressed humming,” Zuko murmured. “What’s got you?”

Sokka spun around in his chair again, this time catching the spin with his foot so that he faced his boyfriend, away from the monitors of doom. Zuko was dressed soft for sleep, in his thin, baby blue sweatpants and worn band shirt. Sokka raised his brows upon seeing it.

“Is that Hollywood Undead?” he asked, deciding to change the subject.

Zuko flushed, but decidedly glared, the lids of his burnt eye trembling like they did when he was _sleepy_ -tired.

Actually, it did that when he was any kind of tired, but going from his sloped shoulders and the timing of his blinking, not to mention his particular sleepwear, he was sleepy-tired. There were distinguishments and Sokka rather personally found them to be of the highest importance.

They were cute.

“Shut the fuck up,” Zuko muttered, already climbing into his lap.

Sokka shifted, surprised. It had taken a long time for his cute boyfriend to acclimate to affection and seeing him, feeling him initiate, entirely out of nowhere, this dramatically, was huge. He felt a swell of tenderness rise up in his chest as Zuko settled his tall, lanky self over Sokka’s legs. It was an incredibly uncomfortable position, but right then, he wouldn't give it up for the world.

“I feel like I shouldn’t be criss-crossing under your tall bastard weight,” Sokka commented.

Zuko lightly punched him in the arm then leaned in to drop a sweet, chaste kiss on his lips.

“I just told you to shut the fuck up,” Zuko griped.

Sokka moved to follow him with his face, to delve in, but Zuko continued.

“Seriously, love, what’s wrong?”

Sokka leaned back again, looking away, but he could feel the weight of Zuko’s soft honey gaze pinning him. He’d keep staring until he got his answer. Zuko leaned his head forward and bumped their noses together, giving Sokka an instant _god-I-love-you_ heart attack.

His heart thumped in his chest, racing with his emotions and heavy with his problems. His eyes flickered to the side, as though to gesture to his screens though he didn’t dare turn his head, afraid that this initiating Zuko would vanish, a figment of his imagination, if he did.

“It’s… _that_ course,” he admitted, shifting his legs.

Zuko nodded, moving into a more comfortable position for both of them. Sokka spun them around back towards his desk on his chair so that Zuko could see. He wouldn’t understand any of it, given that what he was studying was an _entirely_ different subject, but he would still see the…

“Agni, Sokka, why do you have seventy-one youtube tabs?” Zuko inhaled.

Sokka gave a weak laugh.

“Babe,” he started.

Zuko held up a finger to his lips, effectively blocking his words.

“No,” he simply said.

He reached out with his arms to pull the desk towards himself, stole the mouse and immediately began going through Sokka’s information tabs. Not all of them were youtube, but the vast majority, as Zuko had already seen, were. They were mostly on-topic. Some of them would even be useful. Most of them, he wouldn’t be able to sit through. The other majority wouldn’t give enough information.

“You do realize that people upload playlists going through the bigger picture to the finer details, right?” Zuko asked him, as he clicked through and manually got rid of what he deemed wouldn’t do Sokka any good.

They’d been together for years, studied together in high school, even continued to study their different college courses in the same vicinity for the moral support (aka complaining and comfort). He trusted him with his resources. He knew what Sokka’s brain would and wouldn’t like.

Dull colors and rough mic quality definitely wouldn’t be able to hold Sokka’s attention. Too bland of a tone? Goodbye. Too long of a video? Haha, that would be cute.

“You should really come to bed and work on this in the morning,” Zuko informed him, all of his prior intonation gone with his focus on his task.

“Yeah,” Sokka admitted.

He knew that he wouldn’t. If he had any sort of chance, he’d need to start on it immediately, before he thought of anything else, and he couldn’t have breakfast until he’d finished something, fully enough to receive his wonderful, vital accomplishment endorphins.

“I can bring you coffee and stuff,” Zuko offered, turning back to Sokka, apparently already done sorting what Sokka had shied away from because _Nightmare!_

He dipped his head under Sokka’s, pushing up against Sokka’s chin, which put his back in a really strange arch because fuck, the boy was _tall_.

Sokka was also tall, but not as. Sokka was also still getting ever-taller, but he figured that was probably because he ate more meat. His major wasn’t part of the health sciences.

Zuko couldn’t dispute it with his Language Arts Education and Theater double major, either, even if Sokka’s sister Katara with her fancy pre-med and Zuko’s friend Ty Lee with her kinesiology, nutrition, and physical therapy triple major definitely could.

Their two local health people could kindly fuck off.

“Sweetheart you don’t need to do that,” Sokka murmured, nuzzling his boyfriend lightly.

His arm snaked up behind Zuko’s back, evidently tickling from his boyfriend’s opposite-arching reaction. Sokka laughed.

“But I wanna treat you,” Zuko whined, doing something between pawing and punching at his chest with his fist. “You’re stupid and I love you and I wanna help you out.” He huffed, rolling his eyes. “Besides, _I’m_ not the one stuck with _hell_ _courses_ in summer.”

“They shouldn’t be hell courses!” Sokka tried, before immediately realizing that he’d said it wrong. He’d meant to say that they weren’t hell courses; that was, however, evidently, a lie. It wasn’t even necessarily the courses themselves; one, he just lacked the motivation to properly study, and the other… that one was, for reasons prior stated, a hell course for reasons beyond itself.

Zuko snorted, the traitor. He leaned up, which wasn’t all that difficult to do, pressing his lips to Sokka’s assuredly. He gently placed his hand over Sokka’s, which had been reaching for his mouse.

“You’re coming to bed, and then we’re going to wake up in the morning, at least one of us, and get you settled in,” he ordered quietly.

Sokka felt his mouth dry as Zuko stood, reaching out a hand to him.

“Lemme compile,” Sokka said.

He quickly spun around, ignoring Zuko’s eyeroll, and then shut everything down. It would take it a few seconds once he booted up again for everything to reload, but that was fine. He spun back to Zuko, placed his feet on the ground, and let himself be pulled up and against a familiar lanky form. Zuko smiled at him, small and sweet. It tugged at Sokka’s heartstrings. He wanted to lay on the floor and weep.

In bed, under their giant dual-purchase weighted blanket, they snuggled close, facing one another with their limbs snaking around each other. It would be interesting to disentangle once whoever woke up first woke, but it would be worth it.

It would always be worth it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two dorks probably break a chair.

The morning was moist and rainy outside of Sokka’s window as he rolled out of bed and onto the floor, half-dragging Zuko behind him with the blankets tangled around his legs.

“ _Mmh uppp,”_ Zuko groaned sleepily, batting in his general direction with his eyes still closed.

Sokka smiled at him quietly, watching as he inhaled stronger, pulling in more oxygen to wake himself. Sleepy, honey brown eyes blinked over at him in the little warm light provided by their dragon night light. His hair was mussed beyond repair. A small trail of saliva leaked from the corner of his mouth. Sokka chuckled.

“You’ve been drooling in your sleep again,” he teased.

Zuko took a moment to process, and then his brows furrowed.

“No breakfast for you,” he decided, immediately flipping over to face the wall and the window, through which the dark clouds outside with no light peeking through announced the time. “What time even is it?”

Sokka glanced over at their alarm, surprised to see that it was only 3 A.M.

“Ah,” he replied simply.

Zuko rolled over to face in his direction again, squinting at the red numbers on their bedside table. He glared up at Sokka, then raised his arms expectantly.

Sokka shook his head. Zuko pouted, but still dropped his arms. He snuggled deeper into the blankets.

“Give me five,” he ordered.

Sokka leaned down, carding a hand gently through his mess of hair.

“You don’t have to,” he reminded.

Zuko shuddered, leaning into his touch.

“You can’t stop me.”

Sokka snorted, standing back up fully and withdrawing his hand. Zuko whined, reaching out with one of his own to grasp and Sokka’s arm, then dragged it down as Sokka pulled away. Their fingers briefly wrapped around each other’s before they both let go.

Sokka’s desk waited ominously, his whole setup seemingly staring at him. He knew what he had to do, he just hoped that he wasn’t too late.

He sat down in his swivel chair in a mockery of a cross-legged pretzel position and inhaled, then reached out to his PC and turned it on. Then, each of his monitors, and the room was lit in a comforting blue glow from his live waves background. He pulled on not his headphones, but one of his blue earbuds, and quickly opened up a tab for music in Firefox, _Lo-fi for Ghosts (Only) 2_. It was an older playlist from the year prior, but its vibes were soothing, and that was what, in that moment, he needed the most. In his other ear, he could hear the patter of rain outside of his window and Zuko beginning to stir, and soon would hear the rumbles of their coffee machine starting up, too.

Next, he took in another breath and let it out, willing his heart to be steady. He’d memorized the important dates for both of his courses. Today was the last day that he could do what he should have done in the beginning.

It was really while dreaming that he’d realized it, but he was ready to let go. He had to.

He opened a tab in Chrome, the browser that he’d dedicated to both his and the summer alternative university’s spyware. He figured that Google’s browser was already spyware on its own, so why not compound it all in one location to the best of his ability?

He logged into the university’s system, then clicked into registration. He could feel his heart beating in his chest, his pulse in his neck. He dropped the programming course that had given him so much trouble and instantly, a tidal wave of relief swamped his system.

Everyone had advised him to wait. Even Uncle, over a Facetime chat with he and Zuko, had told him that he’d forgotten that, _“Sometimes patience is the key. You should put yourself before your studies if you want them to last.”_

He must’ve picked up on Zuko’s habit of not listening somewhere along their line.

He wasn’t mad at himself for trying. It wasn’t foolish to aspire. He just wished that he’d decided sooner that it just wasn’t going to work out, that he’d let go sooner than the last possible day, so that he could’ve enjoyed his ‘break’ more and with less stress.

He set to reorganizing his entire college schedule. Four courses rather than five, though he might be able to manage a seminar or athletic course with them. Only one of those per, if even.

He would be patient. He would get his degree. He was doing well. He just needed to be reasonable with himself over what he could handle healthily versus what a—that word—version of him might be able to handle giving it his all.

He didn’t have to bite off everything at once, full-speed. He just had to graduate and he had to keep up his GPA for his full ride.

He’d been lucky up to the point he was at, but he’d still struggled. His boyfriend had, too, quite worse than him the majority of the time. _They’d_ been lucky in university up to that point, that things were working out despite all of the issues they were facing.

He let a tiny, tiny smile raise the corners of his lips as he switched over to gmail. Morning was, for him, the best time to start. If he could get his accomplishment endorphins running…

The email to his advisor was a little longer than he’d intended, and as it turned out by the automated response, they were actually out for the week. It made enough sense that they’d be taking a break, given that they’d soon be dealing with all of the incoming Freshmen.

He felt good.

He was also going to be changing his major for the second time, but only between two programs that were the same for the first four semesters.

Everything was still working out, and with this change, his schedule for the rest of his college career would be a lot more forgiving, too.

He closed Chrome and let his face drop into his hands.

A cup of something steaming was sat on the desk between his arms. He opened his eyes to see an eco-friendly, disposable cup of steaming coffee. He could smell jasmine tea behind him.

“I still don’t understand how you drink that shit,” Zuko snorted into his non-earbud-holding ear, rubbing his shoulder soothingly.

"It's calm down focus-y juice," Sokka re-explained for what must've been the thousandth time.

He sat the cup of jasmine tea onto the desk as well, then did what was either the least or most expected thing for him as who he was to do: immediately climbed up the back of Sokka’s chair, placing his legs on the arms of it, and leaning forward over Sokka’s head to balance.

“We’re going to fall,” Sokka said in disbelief, his heartbeat spiking even as a weird, accepting sort of calm overtook his mind.

“My desk’s far enough and there’s two yoga mats between us and it,” Zuko said, as though that were enough to keep him from cracking open his skull.

His skull was hard, admittedly, so it probably was. Although, that might’ve just been his head. Both? It was probably both, Sokka decided.

“Why aren’t you going back to bed?” Sokka’s voice was higher than he’d meant it to come out as. “Go back to bed.”

“Mmh,” Zuko mm’d, as though that were an answer. His torso sloped over Sokka’s head, and would’ve cast a shadow if not for the light source in front of them.

“So, did you start yet?” he asked.

That did cause Sokka to smile.

“Yeah,” he answered.

Zuko didn’t question him on it, though he could almost hear the gears turning in his head.

“You left the course, didn’t you?” he finally asked.

“Yep,” Sokka answered, leaving it just at that.

A pair of slightly cracked lips brushed over his head, and the chair was tilting, and they were falling backwards. Zuko barked out a laugh as the back of the chair—and _his_ back, hit the jarring floor.

“Proud of you,” he said.

“Fuck you, man,” Sokka cursed. He flipped himself over, then pushed up on his knees to survey the damage.

Zuko was sprawled out across the floor like he’d earlier been in bed, looking for all purposes just as comfortable. He wasn’t even wincing, though he had to have hit his back hard, which meant that he had to have hit his spine hard, his neck and the back of his head and-- _!_

Then there was a hand on Sokka’s shoulder dragging him forwards, and he collapsed onto the floor on top of his boyfriend, pulled into a hug. He could feel his own heart beating wildly, though Zuko’s seemed calm and steady in his chest.

“You’re doing great, Sokka,” Zuko was saying into his ear. “You did what you needed to, and that’s good. Everything’s going to be fine.”

Sokka buried his face into the crook of Zuko’s neck and just breathed.

“Thanks.”

Zuko hummed some sort of response at him and wrapped a leg over Sokka’s own, and honestly, what kind of position were they even in? They were two bi guys and a chair.

That probably explained it well enough, he figured.

Suddenly, a phone screen lit up in Zuko’s pocket. He reached down for it, cursing a little, then pulled it out to see a text from Ty Lee. He frowned, glancing at Sokka, who glanced back at him.

Apparently, they weren’t the only ones up early that morning.

Zuko opened the message, unsurprised to see Ty Lee and Suki’s painted faces on screen with an exorbitant amount of cactus juice cartons on the coffee table in front of them. No, what surprised both he and Sokka was Mai’s immediate following selfie, still on Ty Lee’s phone, with the same makeup and a cactus sticker on their cheek.

They were smiling, very faintly. Sokka cooed.

“Aww, they look so happy!” he cheered.

He remembered when he'd first met Zuko and Mai. The two had told him, quote-unquote that they were 'never happy,' to which Zuko's sister had rolled her eyes and Ty Lee had laughed.

What liars they'd been.

“Wanna send a selfie back?” Zuko asked.

Sokka quirked a brow.

“Floor chair selfie?” he asked.

“Floor chair selfie,” Zuko confirmed.

The lighting was terrible, and the position was highly compromising, but their smiles were genuine and Sokka swore he could hear their friends laughing from across town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They're probably fine. The chair, on the other hand, is definitely broken.
> 
> "Lo-fi for Ghosts (Only)" & "Lo-fi for Ghosts (Only) 2" playlists by Homework Radio can both be found on Youtube and are what I listened to while writing both chapters for this. Highly recc if trying to set up shorter study/productivity sessions.
> 
> Btw good luck everyone who's dealing with this sort of a situation rn! Shit's difficult and we can all make it through this, whether goal is to complete something or realizing that there's another way through. Too often, the "happy end" is only allowed to be the one where everything turns out exactly as "successful" is expected to be, but it doesn't always have to be that, which is something that I just recently realized and holy shit has it made life so much easier. Whether you're going full stride for the right now or need to take that breath, I'm proud of you. <3
> 
> Also yes, this was a vent fic from the beginning to the end.

**Author's Note:**

> Considering adding a ch2 in which Zuko does make breakfast and lounges precariously on Sokka's shoulders on the chair bc he Can even tho they're Going to Fall.


End file.
